Chapter 153 : Chapter 153

Chapter 153: “A good-for-nothing trying to drag out a feeble existence.”

Chu Zu unhurriedly entered that building.

The current building was a tall building, Chu Zu first went to the underground level.

The dim underground parking lot was filled with a stale, musty smell.

The outer layer of the scattered stone pillars was mottled and peeling, the peeled areas damp, showing a clear color difference.

The fluorescent lights on the ceiling had long been damaged.

Sporadic light scattered down through the broken lampshades, illuminating the dust motes drifting in the air.

Chu Zu walked to a corner of the parking lot and saw a bottomless pit appear before him.

The area around the pit was covered with broken warning tape and mottled warning signs, indicating “Danger, Do Not Approach”.

Scattered around the edge of the pit were some long-rusted surveying tools and broken wooden planks.

Messy footprints and blurry track marks were everywhere on the grit.

Beside the pit also stood several broken warning signs.

Although severely weathered, the writing on them was still clear: “Under Construction, Do Not Enter”, “Dangerous Area”.

It seemed this building was currently what the police officer called a hazardous building.

Chu Zu looked down carefully.

He had been thrown into a well before, he roughly knew how deep that was, but this pit seemed bottomless, pitch-black, as if the light was being absorbed, nothing could be seen.

Standing at the edge of the pit, he turned on his flashlight and shone it downwards.

Chu Zu finally saw something.

“Chu Shiju really is…”

The surrounding air was also filled with a strange silence, only the cold wind occasionally blowing from the vents stirred up wisps of dust to float in the air.

There was definitely a problem with the building's ductwork.

Amidst the sound of the wind, Chu Zu indeed heard a sound resembling a wail.

After standing by the pit for a while, Chu Zu went upstairs.

He started to miss the Little yellow chicken.

If the Little yellow chicken were here, it should have grasped every character's location by now, and be repeatedly emphasizing where Chu Shiju was, clamoring that this time it must teach him a lesson, let him see what a true life-and-death struggle was.

Chu Zu was a person who liked quiet.

For a long time during his continuous deaths, just hearing others speak would make him flare up in anger.

New place, new occupation, new environment, Chu Zu was like a tourist in a constant state of intoxication.

He could feel his mind starting to blur, but he forced himself to maintain absolute clarity.

In such a state, a person couldn't take in other sounds.

Yet the Little yellow chicken was exceptionally noisy, and its noise pulled one back, bit by bit, to a reality that wasn't quite real.

Chu Zu started walking up the emergency stairwell.

As the Gentleman said, man walks towards high places.

He could perfectly simulate the Little yellow chicken's speech in this situation in his mind—

Son of a bitch Superior, saying it's an assessment, assessment my ass, it just wants to shove in all the extra workload.

Greedy, despicable, disgusting!

And then it would start working even harder, turning all the pressure from its Superior into motivation.

If it hadn't met Chu Zu, the Little yellow chicken would still be that unlucky, assembly-line-working, assembly-line-listed-in-the-mall system.

Instead of like now—it had gotten itself into the same predicament as Chu Zu.

The Superior must be furious by now.

Chu Zu thought with an empty mind, when he suddenly heard a noise from the upper floor.

The hurried footsteps were still clear through the wall, enough for him to detect the panic in them.

Chu Zu went upstairs unhurriedly, turned into the building's corridor, and saw two figures rushing straight at him, then abruptly stopping.

Chu Zu took out his flashlight, aimed it at them, and turned it on.

The bright light was nearly blinding.

The two raised their hands to shield their eyes.

The next second, the flashlight fell to the ground.

Chu Zu already had one hand on each of them, pressing the back of their necks, pinning them firmly against the wall.

Man on the left, woman on the right, gender equality.

Hoh, pretty good luck, it was the pair of university students, a couple who hadn't met with misfortune yet.

Ten minutes ago.

The experiment building had undergone a change visible to the naked eye.

This building was notoriously desolate, basically no one ever approached it.

More detailed rumors only circulated among the chemical engineering people.

Neither Jiang Ran nor Yang Mangshu were chemical engineering people.

One was from the literature faculty, the other from the law faculty; they knew very little about this building.

But clearly, this building now densely packed with rooms... was clearly not the experiment building.

They were originally on the second floor.

In the blink of an eye, the floor indicator sign in front of them showed the number 25.

The corridor was long and empty, and eerie as hell.

The two stopped arguing and started trying to leave.

The elevator wasn't displaying anything.

Even if it was, they wouldn't dare take it.

In the end, they chose to go down via the emergency stairwell.

The stairwell was too quiet, only their footsteps echoed.

Jiang Ran could feel Yang Mangshu's palm sweating, and his own heartbeat was getting louder and louder.

The emergency stairwell had voice-activated lights.

The footsteps arrived first, then the lights would turn on.

With every floor they descended, Jiang Ran's imagination, cultivated by literature, would conjure up countless scenarios in his head.

Heading all the way down the spiral stairwell, Yang Mangshu was already taking three steps at a time when she was suddenly grabbed by Jiang Ran.

He covered Yang Mangshu's mouth, turned his head to the side, wanting to carefully discern the sound he had just heard.

Someone downstairs cursed: “Fuck you, Yang Jing, you can even say something like killing a cop? I’m not going crazy with you, if you want to be a murderer, go be one yourself!”

Then, the sounds in the stairwell began to diverge.

There were footsteps moving further and further away from them, and also a cold sneer getting closer and closer.

Jiang Ran immediately realized someone was coming upstairs.

Jiang Ran and Yang Mangshu looked at each other, and the two quietly exited the stairwell, reaching the corridor of the current floor.

This was the 13th floor.

This eerie building had two emergency stairwells.

Now, one had a suspected dangerous person in it.

They had no choice but to hurry towards the other end of the corridor, looking for another way out.

Just as the green exit sign was within reach, a figure emerged from the corner.

Jiang Ran and Yang Mangshu quickly braked.

Immediately after, a blinding white light made them unable to open their eyes.

After a wave of dizziness, a dull “thud” sounded.

Jiang Ran's face was pressed against the wall, pinned tightly.

A deep voice belonging to a young man sounded from behind his neck—

“Who are you? What are you doing here?”

…

Chu Zu ultimately knew their identities.

He gave them a token scare, then gradually loosened his grip.

This was his first time seeing Jiang Ran.

Tall and thin, with a pair of thin-rimmed glasses on his face, which had been knocked askew when he was pressed against the wall.

He didn't dare reach up to fix them now.

One hand was clenched tight, the other was shielding Yang Mangshu.

Jiang Ran was completely different from Tong Qinzhen.

In front of him, Yang Mangshu was the one who seemed a bit at a loss.

Chu Zu looked the two of them up and down, took two steps back, made a gesture to calm them down, and picked up the flashlight from the floor.

At this time, Jiang Ran was already pushing Yang Mangshu's arm, wanting her to take the chance to run while he held the person back.

“You can't get out of this building, and there's a murderer wandering inside. Are you sure you want her to run around?”

Chu Zu knew just talking was useless.

As he stood up, he simply grabbed Yang Mangshu, the movement so precise and smooth it seemed choreographed.

Yang Mangshu couldn't leave, so Jiang Ran wouldn't act rashly either.

The love of young people was very strange, but also very easy to handle.

Chu Zu briefly explained the situation in the building, only saying he came in looking for someone, similar to them, the building suddenly changed, and he found himself trapped here.

Combining the context, it was easy to understand it as: he came in looking for the so-called murderer.

This wasn't wrong either.

If Chu Shiju was also counted as a murderer, Chu Zu was indeed looking for him.

They had just had a one-sided physical confrontation, it wasn't that easy to let down their guard.

But they couldn't win a fight, and they couldn't escape, and his girlfriend was still in Chu Zu's hands.

Jiang Ran silently pretended to understand everything, leaning towards Yang Mangshu.

University students understood a most basic principle: don't ask too much, knowing too much was no good for them.

Chu Zu still held onto Yang Mangshu, saying: “It was my fault for attacking first. You suddenly rushed out, it was a reflex.”

He tossed the flashlight to Jiang Ran, took out the police officer's ID, and showed the cover.

Chu Zu copied the police officer's words, saying verbatim, “The residents were evacuated long ago. It's not open to the public, and it's especially dangerous at night—so why did you come here? You don't look old, a young couple coming here for an adventure at night?”

Chu Zu's current age was only 24, but he could act.

Actions, expression, language, tone... all these could affect a person's judgment of someone's age.

As long as he could establish a “steady” image, Chu Zu's age became ambiguous.

Seeing the ID, hearing the slightly official words, and the fact that Chu Zu indeed showed no further aggression, Jiang Ran's stress was clearly less than before, but his voice was still a bit tense: “Officer, we thought this was the school's experiment building…”

“Who are you kidding?”

Chu Zu said amusedly, “University students, right? Does this place look like an experiment lab to you?”

He offered a conversational opening.

If these two university students were smart enough, they should know what to say next.

Yang Mangshu spoke up: “This place really was... the experiment building before.”

…

The two university students spilled everything they knew, like pouring out beans.

They hadn't entered any room yet, but they heard a conversation suspected to be between Yang Jing and his accomplice.

Hearing the word “murderer”, Chu Zu's eyes flickered.

“Where are they?”

Jiang Ran pointed to the other end of the corridor: “They were in the stairwell over there before.”

Chu Zu lowered his eyes and thought for a moment.

The Second Playthrough had changed from the first playthrough.

In the first playthrough, Yang Mangshu didn't know about the murderer.

And now Chu Zu was clear: the lethality of the four types of rooms for Jiang Ran lay in parental abuse and the lab material leak.

As for Yang Mangshu, all four rooms were highly threatening to her.

Especially the room with the well.

A one-in-four chance of hitting, a one-hundred-percent mortality rate.

“You two go to the bottom floor. Don't rush to run, be careful, hide from people first.”

Chu Zu said, “When you get to the bottom floor, find a corner, anywhere is fine, stay far from the building. No matter what happens, don't show yourselves, absolutely do not come back upstairs, and don't touch any room.”

“I have a colleague in the building.”

Chu Zu recalled the figure he saw rushing towards the building from outside, saying, “He's wearing an army green jacket. If you run into him, you can ask him for help. He might know more than I do.”

“Of course, you can try to leave, and then you'll find out I was right.”

After speaking, Chu Zu let go of Yang Mangshu.

Before turning to leave, he added one more thing, “I'll tentatively believe what you said about the experiment building... Your school doesn't have many people who wander around buildings with nothing better to do, right?”

Jiang Ran and Yang Mangshu paused, clearly thinking of Tong Qinzhen.

Chu Zu waved at them: “I've made the dangers clear. Stay safe.”

With a general direction, finding people became much faster.

After reaching the other stairwell, Chu Zu went straight down.

Previously, that unnamed Mr. Murderer had been vague when explaining things, saying he was scared stiff, ran into the building, and bumped into Yang Jing and Chu Shiju.

Then they should have met on the bottom floor, or in a stairwell on a lower floor.

When people are extremely panicked, they don't choose an unfamiliar direction, they only follow the path they've taken before, which was the stairwell he used to escape downwards—going down, observing the surroundings, he would eventually find some clue.

What Chu Zu didn't expect was that his luck in the Second Playthrough was unexpectedly good.

First, there were the two university students providing him a plot-reasonable way to find people, and then the “clue” charged right at him.

He met Yang Jing head-on in the stairwell.

Yang Jing was stunned for a second after seeing him, subconsciously looked behind him, and by the time he looked back, Chu Zu had already rushed in front of him.

“Fuck!”

Yang Jing shivered, frowned and cursed lowly, “Are you sick, getting so close all of a sudden? You said you had something to do, told me to go to the 23rd floor first, were you playing me?”

“I told you to go to the 23rd floor?”

Chu Zu narrowed his eyes, sizing up Yang Jing.

Yang Jing looked back at him impatiently, his gaze particularly unfriendly, and also somewhat wary: “You said you had something to do, was it to change your clothes?”

“So you know where Chu Shiju is.”

Chu Zu simply drew his gun and pressed it against Yang Jing's forehead, “Did he tell you about the ‘friend’? The ‘friend’ that only you can see, but others can't.”

Yang Jing's body had just tensed up from having a gun pointed at him.

After hearing Chu Zu's words, his expression changed instantly, his eyes uncontrollably glancing towards a certain spot to the side.

“What friend... I don't have any damn friend…”

So he didn't tell him.

Perhaps it was because Chu Shiju felt it wasn't time to say it, or more likely, Chu Shiju also had memories of the first playthrough.

He still needed to use Yang Jing for some things, but he was too lazy to walk the same path as the previous playthrough, so he didn't mention it.

Chu Zu was more inclined to believe he had memories.

That's why that thing had appeared in the pit in the parking lot.

Chu Zu moved the gun muzzle from Yang Jing's forehead to the side of his head: “Go upstairs. I'll wait for him with you.”

“What exactly are you and him—”

Yang Jing turned his head, wanting to speak, but met Chu Zu's deep red eyes directly.

Those eyes stared at him for several tens of seconds, making Yang Jing's fingertips tremble involuntarily.

Only when Yang Jing obediently shut his mouth and took a step up the stairs did Chu Zu move his cold gaze away from him.

He was not Chu Shiju.

Yang Jing was sure.

Chu Shiju also looked sick in the head, but not as terrifying as this one.

This person didn't bother to hide it at all.

In his eyes, Yang Jing was already a pile of rotten meat that had been dead for a long time!

It didn't take long to get to the 23rd floor.

Yang Jing's stamina was clearly failing, he had to brace his hands on his knees while climbing the stairs.

But the young man, holding the gun steady and maintaining an even pace, wasn't even breathing heavily.

As they stepped from the stairwell onto the 23rd floor, Chu Zu heard a faint sound, like an alarm clock muffled by a pillow.

He reacted immediately, grabbing Yang Jing with one hand and throwing him backwards.

The immense force slammed the man directly onto the wall of the emergency stairwell.

Yang Jing let out a short cry of pain.

Just as he raised his head, he saw Chu Zu lunging over as well.

“Head down—”

The words had barely left his mouth when a massive explosion rang out from behind Chu Zu!

The wall connecting the 23rd floor and the emergency stairwell was blasted to pieces.

Rubble and fine gravel flew everywhere, and the entire building trembled with the explosion.

Chu Zu fixed his direction, stepped on solid footing, and dragged the terrified Yang Jing upwards—the Gentleman had told him to always walk towards high places.

Yang Jing was dragged off his feet, stumbling many times, falling on the rubble and being dragged, his knees scraped raw and bloody.

He couldn't care about that, still roaring: “What's with the explosion? Why would this place suddenly explode!!”

“Still haven't figured it out?”

Chu Zu laughed.

He now knew why Chu Shiju had kept Yang Jing around.

“This little brother of mine knew I came here, knew I was looking for him. He knew that after meeting you, I would definitely come to the 23rd floor with you.”

A very good bait.

After all, in the previous playthrough, Yang Jing was always with Chu Shiju.

If Chu Zu wanted to find someone, he would definitely follow after seeing Yang Jing.

This also indirectly proved that Chu Shiju knew Chu Zu's general movements, most likely using some prop again.

“He's that afraid of me, doesn't even dare to see me face to face, yet he wants to kill me.”

Chu Zu sneered, “What a good-for-nothing.”

Yang Jing was in pain and panicking: “You said ‘little brother’... Are you two fucking sick in the head? What are you brothers doing?”

“Playing with human lives.”

Chu Zu stopped on the 25th floor.

The building continued to tremble, and successive explosions could still be heard from downstairs, the sound growing more distant.

After all, according to conventional logic, if there's an explosion in a building, one should flee downwards.

If an entire floor's structure is destroyed, the upper floors will collapse too.

Chu Shiju had planted bombs on several floors below the 23rd.

It seemed he wouldn't rest until Chu Zu was dead.

But “man walks towards high places”.

“When we were kids, I wanted to kill him. He tattled to our parents, and they sent me to a mental hospital. Now he's grown up, how does that saying go... using a lifetime to heal childhood?”

Yang Jing had also grown up in a mental hospital.

Hearing this, he was stunned, and even his cursing stopped.

Chu Zu said: “Don't be afraid. I'm already cured. I can distinguish reality from delusion. But Chu Shiju seems to be stuck in child psychology, thinking that killing me will let him have a happy life, he's throwing a tantrum at me—what are you shaking for?”

Yang Jing muttered: “Cured my ass... madman... you're both madmen…”

Chu Zu nodded, then shook his head.

He was a madman who repeatedly died and revived, he could admit that.

But Chu Shiju?

Chu Zu didn't think he was mad.

Chu Shiju was just a good-for-nothing who had never directly faced death, couldn't think of any other way out, didn't dare to gamble, only used props to ensure his own maximum safety, and treated all other characters as toys, using the most inefficient, ugly, and inhumane methods, trying to drag out a feeble existence.

In that case, Chu Zu would strip away his safety bit by bit, until he could no longer hide, until he actively appeared before him in the equal footing Chu Zu desired.

He must be squirming right now.

Chu Zu thought.

Setting aside whether the explosion could kill him, Chu Shiju now had a pair of parents who had appeared out of thin air.

He should also have realized, even if the domestic violence room still didn't pose much of a threat to him, what the 《Setting Collection》 he'd overlooked could do.

This could be considered a long-distance conversation.

Chu Shiju seemed to be saying: I could kill you the first time, I can kill you a second time.

Chu Zu's reply was simple—Get out here, and face me.